Filipinos rank high in supporting the United States in world affairs, according to recent surveys done by Social Weather Stations in cooperation with an 18-nation study of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) and WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO).

Filipinos rank first in trusting the US to act responsibly in the world, first in disagreeing that the US is playing the role of world policeman too much, first in supporting long-term US military bases overseas, and third in feeling that the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems.

Philippines is right up there with Israel in being pro American.

Some would say this is because the Philippines was a US colony; however, I suggest that it is because the average Philippino trusts his own experience over what he is told by the media. There is also the dirty little secret that no one here (outside the elite) trusts the newspapers. They don’t trust the TV news, or the politicians, or the police either. They just assume these people are “all crooks”.

In contrast, the press as a whole tends to be skeptical of the US; in Europe, it is openly anti American, as a recent BBC self analysis admits. Much of the press in South America is similarly leftist. The Arab press in Islamic coutries similarly tends to demonize the US, and the dirty little secret is that many of these countries have no free press, but a government run press that uses the US as a scapegoat for the anger that otherwise would be directed at their own government’s corruption.

This explains why the “educated” and elite of the Philippines tend to be more anti American than the masses. The elites went to colleges where socialism/marxism and liberation theology is seen as the answer to all problems, whereas the masses, who only know the US from Americans they actually know, or from relatives who live there, tend to be more pragmatic.

So when a lot of European papers print scare stories about the terrible censorship and civil rights abuses in the US, as if these things were not rare exceptions, but commonplace, a European who has either never been in the US or thinks the upper West side of Manhatten is the US will believe the report.

But a Pinoy, whose cousin is a nurse in Chicago or served in the US Navy and has retired to San Diego, will ask them and get a laugh as the answer.

Of course, you do see a “love/hate” relationship among many Philippinos with the US.

And, as one wag put it: “My takeaway from the survey is this: Filipinos’ faith in America is like their faith in the Catholic Church. Unreasoning, uncritical, and unrequited.”

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